Raymond Benson - 2012 - Hitman: Damnation (20 page)

 
          
I
was in Millennium Park in Chicago.

 
          
The baby stroller.
Dressed as a woman.
Sniper rifle in hand. Dana Linder was onstage. I was about to raise the gun,
put her within the crosshairs, and squeeze the trigger.

 
          
But
there was no one else in the park. It was just her and me. Dead silence. Not
even wind or birds.

 
          
I
put my eye to the scope. And the figure wasn’t Dana Linder at all. It was the
shadow.
The Faceless One.
Death.

 
          
And
suddenly I was not in Chicago. I was no longer pointing the rifle at Death on
the stage of the pavilion.

 
          
I
was back on that mountain in the Himalayas. The snow and ice beneath my feet
were crumbling.

 
          
Death
was watching me with anticipation.

 
          
I
woke up in a sweat.
Another nightmare.
Hadn’t had one
for a while. Odd that it would happen now. I wondered what it meant.

 
          
The
clock said it was nearly five in the morning. I must have eventually fallen
asleep.

 
          
I
shook the remains of the dream from my head and got out of bed. Went to the
bathroom, found my bottle of pills, and took two.

 
          
And
my thoughts went back to that fateful day in
Nepal.…

 
          
EIGHTEEN

 
          
The
cliff edge trembled violently as rock and ice debris showered around him. Agent
47 couldn’t move forward because of the hail of gunfire from the Chinese man’s
QBZ-95. Going backward would mean falling with the imminent avalanche and being
buried alive beneath tons of ice and snow.

 
          
Once
again, the assassin aimed the
Silverballer
at the
dangling bodyguard, exposing himself in the man’s line of fire. But the
turbulence was too strong. The entire mountainside acted as if it was about to
topple like a house of cards. The ice beneath his feet lurched and threw 47
sideways, just as he felt a searing stab of fire penetrate his left side. As he
fell hard on the craggy surface, he had the presence of mind to realize that
the shaking ground had saved his life. The Chinese man’s round had indeed
pierced the fleshy part at the edge of his waist, but had 47 been standing
upright, the bullet would have gone through his abdomen.

 
          
The
shock waves traveled up the side of the cliff to Nam Vo’s men. The one spotting
the dangling man lost his balance and slipped. He slid off the cliff edge but
managed to grab hold of the rope that suspended his partner. Agent 47 heard
them shout to each other in their language. The rope wouldn’t hold them both. The
rock ledge cracked, and the two men bounced with the hemp. One of them screamed
in terror, for there was nothing below them but thousands of feet of air.

 
          
Agent
47 crawled forward. Blood trailed on the white snow behind him. The tremors
grew more intense as the boomer did its job. If only he could get far enough
away in time.…

 
          
The
rope holding the Chinese men finally gave way. They both shouted a death call.

 
          
Agent
47 watched them plummet until they were mere dots against the gray misty
mountainside.

 
          
He
kept moving. The outward edge of the cliff was just a few feet to his right.
Still intent on the success of his mission, the
hitman
dared to peer down to see what Nam Vo and his party were doing.

 
          
They
were still in place, not really sure what all the commotion above them was
about and oblivious to the oncoming holocaust.

 
          
Then
the sky and earth opened and the ice cliff completely collapsed, carrying Agent
47 with it through blinding lights and into deep and total darkness.

 
          
Morphological
experts and the news media recorded the catastrophe as a large “slab avalanche”
that measured 4,600 meters in length and 18,000 meters in volume, making it one
of the biggest in the Himalayan region. It was blamed on a natural trigger. Nam
Vo and his expeditionary team were wiped away, and their bodies were never
recovered.

 
          
Although
he didn’t know it at the time, Agent 47 was very, very lucky.

 
          
He
had fallen with the bulk of the sliding snow and ice for about eight hundred
feet when his body struck an upward incline of rock upon which was packed new,
soft snow. The impact caused the assassin to bounce toward the mountain face
instead of away from it. Unconscious, Agent 47 rolled like a log into a
rock-solid crevice from which the ledge protruded. He would have plummeted deep
into the fissure had its walls not been so narrow.
Instead,
his body wedged inside a bottleneck, several feet from the opening at the top.
He was cut off and protected from the deadly maelstrom that lasted nearly
thirty minutes.

 
          
When
his eyes fluttered open, the first thing he noticed was the cold. Then, almost
immediately, he felt the excruciating pain in his back. He didn’t know if it
was broken or not. He couldn’t move, although he knew his legs dangled freely.
He was stuck in the crevice, his torso pinned in place by the tapered walls of
ice.

 
          
Trapped.
Like a cork in a bottle.

 
          
The
only thing that brought him any comfort was that the sun shone above him
through the opening. He could climb out if he made the effort. The agony in his
back was the biggest obstacle to doing so.

 
          
47
couldn’t see his legs, since the rock walls squeezed tightly against his chest
and waist, but he could kick them. He wasn’t paralyzed, which meant his back
was miraculously unbroken. It just hurt like the devil. He had most likely
ruptured a disc or two. The cleft in the mountain had saved his life, but it
had brutally wrenched his torso as if it were made of clay.

 
          
It
was also difficult to breathe. The pressure of the stone against his chest
prevented him from inhaling deeply. That realization was enough for 47 to
attempt the escape. He’d known pain in his lifetime, but this was going to be
severe. Luckily, his arms were caught above his shoulder line, allowing him to
gain some leverage. The mere act of pressing down with his forearms and hands
brought intense jolts of misery to his muscles.

 
          
Take
it a little at a time.

 
          
Push
down, wiggle up. Push down, wiggle up.

 
          
Agent
47 felt like a worm struggling to slip through a hole lined with sharp spikes.

 
          
His
clothing ripped as the rocks dug into the skin on his chest and belly. The
bullet wound was minor compared to what his back was going through.

 
          
The
assassin nearly blacked out from the pain and effort, but he
willed
himself to keep at it. If he didn’t get out of that
hole now, he’d never do it. He would die there, a fly caught in a web of ice
and stone.

 
          
Push
down, wiggle up.

 
          
He
didn’t know how long it took, but once his hip bones cleared the craggy
bottleneck, he was home free. It was then only partially painful to use his
legs and boots to support his weight. Five minutes later, he was standing on
top, looking down at the abyss that might have been his grave.

 
          
There
was snow everywhere—so much bright whiteness that it was difficult to discern
where the edge of the cliff dropped off.

 
          
47
took stock of what he had on him.

 
          
His
beloved briefcase was gone. The
Silverballer
he’d had
in his hand—vanished. The backpack containing his supplies—obliterated and
buried somewhere thousands of feet below. He had no climbing equipment. All he
could account for was a wad of currency in his pocket and a fake passport.

 
          
Except
for the ripped clothing and his boots, he was unprotected from the elements. He
pulled off one of the shreds of his jacket, lifted his shirt, and tied it
around his waist to hopefully stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound.

 
          
Perhaps
he would die on
Kangchenjunga
after all.

 
          
There
didn’t seem to be an easy path down, but the mountain face going upward
appeared to be climbable with only hands and feet. Agent 47 thought he could
make out a level rim some fifty feet above his head. Perhaps that led to
another, more agreeable route that he could traverse without climbing
equipment. He knew it was unlikely, since reaching any sort of altitude on the
Kanch
required gear and more expertise than he possessed.
But he had to try.

 
          
The
icy wind grew stronger as he scaled the rocky face. His gloves helped with
handholds, and at least the boots were still strong and sturdy. Every few
inches he ascended were painful. He felt as if he had been tortured on a
medieval rack, his vertebrae pulled apart or crushed together and permanently
fixed in that position.

 
          
When
he reached the level ledge, 47 collapsed and lay on his stomach. He rarely
cursed, but for once he allowed a few epithets to spill from his mouth.

 
          
It
was then that he thought angrily about Diana.

 
          
What
had happened? Where had she gone? Why had she left him stranded? The mission
was a success—he was certain that Nam Vo was dead—but who else might have perished
in the avalanche? The boomer had obviously caused a very destructive landslide,
but, without Diana’s exact pinpoint on the cliff, it turned out sloppily.

 
          
He
must have fallen asleep from the exertion and the pain, for the next thing he
knew, the sun was low on the horizon, the temperature was dozens of degrees
colder, and the wind was biting. 47 had lost his bivouac tent with his
backpack. Could he survive a night on the mountain? Perhaps he’d been better
off stuck in that crevice after all!

 
          
47
rolled over on his side and winced. There was no position that was comfortable.
No matter what he did, the nerves in his back screamed bloody murder.

 
          
And
then he heard voices.

 
          
Was
he hallucinating?

 
          
The
assassin reached for a flare that he had in his jacket pocket—but it was gone.
If only he could attract some attention. Would anyone see him?

 
          
The
voices grew louder.

 
          
Someone
was near!

 
          
He
tried to call out, but his voice cracked. 47 couldn’t seem to make his vocal
cords operate.

 
          
Then
two shadows appeared on the rim.
People.

 
          
The
hitman
was unable to determine how far away they
were. He was delirious from the pain. He did, though, manage to raise an arm
and wave it back and forth. In the dim light, the fading sun cast a glint off
his wristwatch and acted as a beacon.

 
          
The
two travelers saw him and rushed forward.

 
          
When
he awoke, Agent 47 saw a flickering light dancing across a stony ceiling. Icy
stalactites hung like daggers but were in no danger of falling on him.

 
          
He
was in a cave of some sort.